5G for all: Are we ready to embrace?

When 4G first arrived in Bangladesh 1-2 years ago, everybody was skeptical of this phenomenon. Today, everyone is reaping its benefits. Now comes the advent of 5G. The 5G network has two components: a 5G enabled device on the user end and a 5G related network infrastructure to help ensure smartphone connectivity. The question remains, is Bangladesh ready for it? Moreover, what is 5G and why do we need it? How do we access it? These are the questions that the webinar "5G For All", jointly conducted by The Daily Star and realme, and held on 7th July attempted to answer.

Moderated by Shahriar Rahman, Editor, Toggle, The Daily Star, the panel discussion consisted of 7 distinguished personalities working in the smartphone industry, e-commerce, government, and youth sector.

Tim Shao, Managing Director, realme Bangladesh, said that 4G is 20-30 times faster than 3G which currently provides huge benefits to us for video calling, live streaming, and gaming. Now, 5G is not only important for communication technology, but is more important for innovative technology. It is unique and attractive and is 100 times faster than 4G, processing 1 GB of bandwidth within only a few seconds. This enables AR/VR to be easily processed and 4K live streaming too. "Despite the worldwide focus on 5G now, it appears in only a few high-range flagship devices in the country right now. realme wants to be on the forefront of bringing 5G to Bangladesh through their smartphone devices at each and every price range for all," said Tim.

Continuing Tim's enthusiastic sentiments about realme's future 5G plans, Reeves Li, Branding Director, realme said, "5G has the potential to benefit everything from entertainment, gaming, education, and public safety." He elaborated, "In other words, 5G is designed to extend the scope of mobile technology beyond the capacities of 4G. It will be transformative, fueling innovation across every industry and every aspect of our lives."

Reeves further said, "By the end of 2022, it is expected that 1 out of 2 smartphones globally will support 5G. Studies have shown that young people are not willing to compromise design and performance for price. They want lighter, thinner, & more appealing designs along with more functional features enabled by 5G."

"We intend to further increase our 5G offerings, providing a more enhanced 5G mobile experience (which has become the standard), not only with premium products but also with more innovative designs. We also plan to expand our product portfolio to offer affordable designs without compromising on quality and premium flagship products leading to technological innovation," he added.

Echoing the sentiments of his colleagues, Md. Wasek Sazzad, Planning Manager - Branding, realme, added that to aware the youth about the technicalities of 5G, they initiated a real 5G Academy on social platforms. The purpose is to make the youth educate of the 5G benefits in simple language ie to increase their understanding so that they can spread word about it to others as well. The latter is important for a stronger faster 5G ecosystem. "realme is also known for interacting with the youth. Hence, they would let the others know about the youth opinion soon through debates, events etc. This was important for four reasons. Firstly, the youth are the largest demographic in Bangladesh so their voice matters. Secondly, knowing the specifications and style of models preferred by the youth would enable the company to bring these models coupled with 5G to prepare a future-tech ready generation. Thirdly, since its launch in 2018, realme has been associating itself with the items the youth are mostly familiar with in each of its campaign. This is so that the users can become more familiar with realme. As a continuation of this policy, realme has globally collaborated for realme 8 5G with the 'Fast & Furious' franchise to instill the image of the extremely fast speed of 5G in an entertaining way. Lastly, over the last one year, the realme community had grown to almost 2 lakh members with whom the realme team had arranged several events to learn about their preferences and incorporate those into their future products. This is why realme was a trendsetting brand, their USP being brining new trendy smartphones every month," he said.

Evaly CEO & Managing Director Mohammad Rassel shared the same sentiments regarding the future of 5G, especially given the present fourth industrial revolution and the rise of digital Bangladesh. He said, "Evaly will be playing the biggest role in the rollout of Realme's 5G enabled smartphone devices for the youth who are looking for affordability and maximum net usage. Through Evaly, customers will not have to incur any additional costs while accessing these realme smartphones."

To understand how the government planned to build the 5G framework, Salman Rahman, Partner, Private Sector Division, Inspira Advisory and Consulting Ltd responded that the government expectation in 5G policy level had started back in 2019.

"The revised timeline is now 2023 and the goal is to bring 5G to all metropolitan cities of Bangladesh by 2026. While the government is the primary stakeholder, the next biggest stakeholders are the network providers like Teleco who are ready for 5G rollout and plan for FDI. However, they need government support too, including budget through the form of corporate tax etc," he said.

He further explained, "Since 5G will be used at the device level, the issue of offering different price points is important considering the general population. Devices assembled in Bangladesh will have a big edge when penetrating the local market. This explains why smartphone manufacturers like realme are focusing on building their own assembly point here. This offers an important angle for 5G."

In early 2021, a study was done on youths that showed 74% responded knew about 5G and were willing to be early adopters. However, in terms of the qualitative aspect, they knew about the speed benefits, but not the other benefits like talking to other devices on the IOT network, working in crowded areas, and doing instantaneous video streaming.

Ashiqur Rahman Tushar, Tech Reviewer, ATC Android ToTo Company and youth icon, said that the youth, who always want to live in the moment, are very excited by the prospect of 5G.

"They will be able to download movies within a few minutes, do bufferless 8K video streaming, and use the internet with ease even in crowded places, unlike with 4G. The low latency of 5G will be the biggest advantage," he continued. Ashiqur is hopeful of the changes in the education, healthcare, telemedicine, transportation and entertainment industry with the advent of 5G.

Shahriar gave the concluding remarks appreciating the fact that 5G will indeed change the way we think about technology consumption.

"Everyone in the ecosystem must come forward as partners and make sure that the affordability and accessibility of 5G are aligned properly. It is good news for Bangladesh that they are or are planning to," he added.